Eric Council Jr., 26, was sentenced to 14 months in prison and three years of supervised release on Friday for participating in the hack of the official X account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The U.S. Department of Justice announced the sentencing in a press release. Council and other hackers took over the SEC’s X account in 2024 to falsely announce that the agency had approved Bitcoin exchange traded funds, or ETFs, which shot up the price of the cryptocurrency before later dropping. A screenshot of the fake SEC post published by hackers who took over control of the @SECGov X account on January 9, 2024. According to the DOJ, Council and his co-conspirators performed a SIM swap attack against the cellphone account of a person who had access to the SEC’s X account, which allowed the hackers to take control of their phone number. From there, the hackers reset the password of the SEC’s X account, granting them control of the account.
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